Don't Hold On To It

"Letting go [mentally] doesn't mean that you deliberately set about to change or manipulate your state of mind: it means that you don't hold on to it."

Tenshin Reb Anderson, Roshi
Excerpt | Being Upright (Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts)

Beyond Discouragement

Sometimes when we feel unnoticed, unappreciated, or devalued it's helpful to remember our core values and our motivation about why we do what we do. The general Buddhist goals are encapsulated in what is known as "Great Vows for All."

However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to help them all.
However inexhaustible delusions are I vow to extinguish them all.
However Dharma teachings are, I vow to master them all.
However endless the Buddha's way is, I vow to follow.

When I feel discouraged, I think about and consider the worth of these vows and understand that to fully embrace this path there is a lot of negative feelings to let go of. In letting do we are able to live these vows and be the person that we truly want to be.

Paradox, Humor and Change

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Life as Stewardship

Sometimes I ask myself, "how are you approaching this life? Am I just hanging out bumping along or am I living it as a stewardship?" If I can make stewardship the central principle in my, it can effect family, friends, co-workers and the environment in very meaningful ways. This can lend itself to having a great sense of purpose. If I don't live my life as a stewardship, what are the consequences of that?


Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Protecting the One

"In Chinese the sentence 'Better to unify the mind' can be translated as 'Guard the One'. What is this one? The mind can be split up, discriminating, filled with illusory intellectualizing. The mind needs to be focused, brought to a single point. Guarding the one means bringing the mind to this single place, and that is done through the method of practice (Zen Meditation)."

Zen Master Sheng Yen

The One Percent Solution

Often when we use the word "amends," it's easy to have the notion of saying that we are "sorry" from something that we've done. In my experience that really misses the mark. As I've learned it, amends means to have a change in behavior or to take some other course of action.

When something goes wrong or there is turbulence in our relationships, it can be very easy to say that we are sorry, but not behave like we are. That's really important to all of us, given that we are all interconnected, in some way shape or form. Daily I think about amends (changes) that I could make which might make any of my interpersonal relationships better (not only with people but my environment as well). But that means that I have to examine and look at myself as objectively as possible. I have to stop pointing at the other guy and checkout my side of the street. In doing this, I like to think that for that day, I might make a one percent improvement in my life.

If I make a one percent gain with myself every day, then at the end of the year, I have the opportunity to make a 365% difference in not only my life, but the life of others. That's better than fighting to hold on to attitudes and behaviors that can be dysfunctional, ineffective and inefficient for myself and others that I encounter.

You too might work for the "one percent solution" every day. It's easier to make small changes, day by day, rather than those big giant quantum leap ones which we may find it hard to stick with.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Our Humility

Last evening I was out with some friends having a discussion. The topic turned to the notion of humility and its value. As I started reflecting on my experience with humility I realized that without it, I am deaf, dumb and blind. Moments when I am arrogant, prideful and think I'm the smartest kid on the block, prevent me from hearing and seeing you. It prevents me from hearing and connecting with the "Buddha, Dharma and Sangha," as we like to say.

To be humble for me is to recognize that rather than being independent, it is in fact far better that we are interdependent. It is the opportunity to hear with more than just my mind, eyes and ears, but rather my entire being. It's in those moments that we are no longer just talking about Buddhist teaching, but being that teaching. The final line in "Song of Zazen," states "this body is the very body of the Buddha." I say yes to that statement, but it requires humility to actualize what this body truly is.

May Your Life Go Well,

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Being Myself

"Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of thinking and being, so I can come to know how it feels to walk hand-in-hand with my self."

Hugh Prather
Excerpt | Notes to Myself

Harmonizing Thought and Action

"People do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean. The "divinity that shapes our ends" is in ourselves; it is our very self. People are manacled only by themselves. Thought and action are the jailers of Fate - they imprison, being base. They are also the angels of Freedom - they liberate, being noble. Not what he/she wishes and prays for does a person get, but what he or she justly earns. Their wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with their thoughts and actions."

James Allen
Excerpt | As A Man Thinketh

A Little Fun?

Which side of your brain do you operate out of? Here's quick visual test from the Daily Telegraph that might help you figure it out. Let me know your results. I'm interested to hear.

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Endless Transformation

"Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation."

Lao Tzu

Live Truly, Just For Today

"Time flies quicker than an arrow and life passes with greater transience than the dew. However skillful you may be, how can you ever recall a single day of the past? Should you live for a hundred years just wasting your time, every day will be filled with sorrow; you drift as the slave of (and to) your senses for that hundred years. But if *live truly* for only so much as a single day you will in that one day not only live a hundred years of life but also a hundred years of your future life."

Dogen Zenji Dai Osho
Excerpt | The Shushogi"

The Simple Truth

"What you are now is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now."

Siddhartha Gotama Buddha

The Power of Choice

"Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Viktor E. Frankl
Excerpt | Man's Search For Meaning

Training Our Mind

"So long as the mind is not under control, destructive thoughts cannot be kept out and selfish motives cannot help bringing undesirable results as well as desirable ones. The inertial drift of millions of such minds, not evil but simply uncontrolled, can take the world to a precipice. Yet as the Buddha implies... The power of a well trained mind is such that one clearheaded, compassionate individual, appealing deeply to what is best in human nature, can be enough to reverse a destructive course of action."

Esnath Easwaran (Translator)
Excerpt | The Dhammapada

World of Distinctions

"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then Believe them to be true."

Siddhartha Gotama Buddha

We are All Things

"If I scoop water, I myself am the water and reflect the moon. If I pick up a flower, I am the flower myself and the whole of my body emits fragrance."

Zenkei Shibayama Zenji Dai Osho
Excerpt | A Flower Does Not Talk"

Be Careful of the Distractions

"Sometimes I think that the greatest achievement of modern culture is its selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for and discourage people from even believing that it exists. And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people "happy," but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy."

Sogyal Rinpoche
Excerpt | The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

As Einstein See's the World

I came across "The World As I See It," by Albert Einstein. Though short, he opens some interesting rooms to explore.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Thinking about Burma

“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If; however, you assume that there is an instinct for freedom and opportunities to change things, there is a chance that you may contribute to making a better world. That is your choice.” -Noam Chomsky

In Burma the struggle to change and evolve into something new... hopefully better continues. Over the weekend, there where many marches and protests, hoping that it would be strikingly clear to the Burmese Military that the world is watching and expecting peaceful action.

Though it may often seem as though our efforts towards peace go unheard at this moment, that does not imply that they won’t be heard later one. The ever so critical key is that we repeat our message over and over, like a mantra, so that the flame of truth does

Gassho,

Jaye Morris, Cruator
digitalZENDO

No Limitation

"As the sun shines everywhere in a cloudless sky, how can you place limits on the power derived from seeing into your own nature."

Bassui Tokusho Zenji Dai Osho
Excerpt | Mud and Water

Kindness

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

Lao-tzu

Architects of our Experience

"Character is built in the same way as a tree or a house is built-namely, by ceaseless addition of new material, and that material is thought. By the aid of millions of bricks a city is built; by the aid of millions of thoughts a mind, a character is built. 'Rome was not built in a day,' and a Buddha, a Plato, or a Shakespeare is not built in a lifetime.

Every person is a mind-builder, whether they recognize it or not. Every person must by necessity think, and every thought is another brick laid down in the edifice of mind. Such 'brick-laying' is done loosely and carelessly by a vast number of people, the result being unstable and tottering characters that are ready to go down under the first little gust of trouble or temptation."

James Allen
Excerpt | The Mastery of Destiny

Experience over Intellectualizing

"Buddha-nature cannot be grasped by the intellect. To experience it directly you must search your mind with the utmost devotion until you are absolutely convinced of its existence, for, after all, you yourself see this Buddha-nature. When I told you earlier that Buddha-nature was ku - impersonal, devoid of mass, unfixed, and capable of endless transformation - I merely offered you a portrait of it. it is possible to think of Buddha-nature in these terms, but you must understand that whatever you can think or imagine must necessarily be unreal. Hence there is no other way than to experience the truth in your own mind."

Philip Kapleau, Zenji Dai Osho

Agents of Change

Here is a question for you. Is knowledge power? While most people tend to say yes, I tend to say no. Knowledge is only of value and powerful when we find ways to apply it within our daily lives, otherwise it's merely a static potential.

I had a conversation with Eido Roshi about this when I was living at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. Roshi said something to the effect of, "if we just practice, practice, practice Zen for ourselves, then we missed the point. In the end we practice not for ourself alone, but all sentient being. This means that we must enter the village with helping hands. Zen is not for us to be removed or hide from society, but rather to be more fully engaged with it. Anything else is just the stink of Zen."

So today, I encourage you and I to look for opportunities to take and utilize some of the principles, values and things which we have learned and put them into practice. Zen is not theoretical philosophy, it's a Way of Being. Be a powerful agent of change.

Gassho (In Gratitude),

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO

Living Inside Out

"Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem. We empower what's "out there" to control us. The change paradigm is "outside-in" -what's out there has to change before we change.

The proactive approach is to change to the "inside-out": to be different, and by being different, to effect positive change in what's out there - I can be more resourceful, I can be more diligent, I can be more creative, I can be more cooperative."

Stephen R. Covey
Excerpt | The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"